Elon Musk's financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it's manufacturing in C...

Elon Musk’s financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it’s manufacturing in China or the Starlink network being used in Ukraine, Musk’s decisions can run counter to stated US policy.

    • Lexam@lemmy.caEnglish
      1014·
      1 year ago

      They should exist, but we are not utilizing them correctly. Once someone has reached a billion dollar networth then they are thrown a big party and then sacrificed to a valcono. I believe this would curb emissions and fix climate change.

      • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
        37·
        1 year ago

        There was a native American tribe that every ten years had individuals return all personal wealth back to the tribe and the threw a big party, then start it all over again

      • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        14·
        1 year ago

        Maybe we just seize all their assets, nationalize them and make them start over with nothing. Call it new game +.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
          9·
          1 year ago

          They just need to make a point system. The incredibly wealthy don’t care about money itself, those are already just points to them. So once you get to say 100 M, you get a trophy saying you won capitalism. After that amount 99% is taxed, you get a penny on the dollar. But all of that taxed money gets you Capitalism points. Capitalism points have no real value and can only be exchanged/traded/gambled with other winners of capitalism. Those with most points will be published each month in the top 100. And the top 10 each year get the prestigous title if honorary economic leader. They can get a medal and a pat on the back by the president.

          You can also donate extra money for more capitalism points at a 10:1 exchange rate to get people to play the game even harder and further drive down wealth.

          (I believe there are slightly less than 10,000 people in the US who would currently get their capitalism trophy. There are >140,000 people worth more than $50M, is 100 to high?)

          Oh and the 100M amount is pegged to minimum wage. Any increase to the capitalism cap has to be matched to the same percent increase to minimum wage.

      • derpgon@programming.dev
        41·
        1 year ago

        Polluting a volcano with a bag of shit isn’t really green. I say we just bury them so they can at least be used as fertilizer.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      69·
      1 year ago

      Just too much power for one person. Even if they’re not in charge of a global internet provider, your average billionaire can singlehandedly affect the lives of millions of people (employees, customers, bystanders) with no democratic oversight at all. It’s just not something that should exist.

    • zephyreks@programming.dev
      21·
      1 year ago

      China seems to do a pretty good job of keeping their billionaires in check. Maybe we should take notes?

    • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
      1933·
      1 year ago

      You: Want to abolish billionaires because they do not support the war enough.

      Me: Want to abolish billionaires because they exploit and oppress the working class.

      We are not the same.

          • dumdum666@kbin.social
            114·
            1 year ago

            I chose it so you could jerk yourself off about it and feel good at least once in your life :)

            • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
              415·
              1 year ago

              “Patriotic socialist”, someone who claims to be a champion of the working class, but is actually more of nationalist. They only care about the working class of a certain nationality or racial group, and are generally bigoted in their view towards marginalized groups. Real socialists are internationalist. You wanting to get rid of Musk, because he’s not sufficiently gung-ho about a war fought between capitalists on the back of workers, implies you consider the national interest more important than the lives of workers. This is anti-worker class collaborator shit, which is what patsocs are really.

              • dumdum666@kbin.social
                113·
                1 year ago

                What the fuck are you even talking about? Russia is throwing thousands of „working class“ lives away, since it wants to expand its territory in aggressive moves since decades. They are forcing Ukraine to defend itself and yes, those are also working class people.

                So you, as a good socialist, are probably on the barricades because of this unprovoked attack on the Ukrainian working class. How are you fighting to defend them from getting killed? Please don’t answer something in the likes of „Ukraine should give up“ because then everyone would only see that you are actually advocating the Murder of the Ukrainian people.

              • Varixable@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                42·
                1 year ago

                Lol what the fuck is this? “You’re an enemy of the working class because you don’t support Elon Musk!”

                This is some brain worm shit my dude.

      • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
        201·
        1 year ago

        Well you’ve jumped to conclusions there, I’m not talking about the war but Billionaires in general and their respective countries in general.

        Billionaires have too much power, live outside the existing system of government and laws, gained their money and power through exploitation and in general are undemocratic.

        So I agree with your second statement, but not the first

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
        212·
        1 year ago

        Meanwhile, until he was supporting USA and Ukraine, he was the good white hero for your ilk.

        Yeah, because of that. This isn’t the gotcha you think it is, you aren’t uncovering a double standard. People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

              • drewdarko@kbin.social
                73·
                1 year ago

                Russia invaded Ukraine. You know… like the Nazis did in WW2.

                Russia is playing the part of the Nazis.

                  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
                    31·
                    1 year ago

                    Wait, and how exactly are any Ukrainians on Russian territory in order to paint blood swastikas on their women after killing them? They are defending their country, meaning they stay mainly in their country. Most haven’t had set foot in Russia since the start of the war. So what are the Russian women doing in Ukraine?

                    You know, this sounds a lot like Russian propaganda trying to make Ukrainians seem like fascists while they are not the ones invading sovereign nations.

                    Their leader is a Jew, you know that right?

                    So even if what you say were true, do you think it would have happened if Russia didn’t illegally invade a sovereign nation?

              • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
                53·
                1 year ago

                Here in the rest of the world we fear the brewing nazi diseases, and how Russia is already a country that is fully infected, whatever they bullshit on paper about nazis.

                  • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
                    42·
                    1 year ago

                    Oof, tell me you’re a shitty comment stalker without telling me you’re a shitty comment stalker.

                    Errors in every sentence, tsk tsk. But as I see here in the other comments, it seems to be on purpose.

                  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
                    22·
                    1 year ago

                    Yeah, not really going to trust “RussianUN” on what the approval rating is on their own country.

                    Russia is blasting full on propaganda on all sides.

                    Got any actual trustworthy sources of your claims?

          • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
            72·
            1 year ago

            No I didn’t, I didn’t ignore anyone. I am answering your statement. We are talking in the context of whom was considering him a “good white hero”. As per your statement:

            he was the good white hero for your ilk.

            I’m not going to specify the whole context of the conversation when it’s clear whom I’m talking about. You established the group of people that worshipped him in your original comment, I explained why.

              • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                You seem to not understand how context in a conversation works. Look, The original comment said the following in a post about how Elon is acting agaisnt US interest:

                This is why billionaires shouldn’t exist they are treasonous

                So they are probably american. Then you answered them with:

                he was the good white hero for your ilk.

                Then I said the following, to you, after your comment:

                People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

                In this context, “People” can mean everybody, yes, but can also mean the subset of people we are talking about already, which I obviously was mentioning. I don’t really get why you are being so confrontational because I didn’t include the opinion of everybody in the world when trying to explain why americans or the west now think that Elon is a traitor.

                Let me give you an example in good faith. When there’s a meeting between neighbours, they vote on X, and the president of the community states “The people have talked”, are they also ignoring the other 8 billion people that exist in the world? No, because it’s obvious that “pople” in that context refers to the subset of people only referring to the neighbours.

                I really can’t explain to you more how context works, if you are that hellbent in chastisizing me for explaining to you why “those people” think like that in general, we have nothing more to talk about.

      • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
        161·
        1 year ago

        My ilk?

        You’re jumping to conclusions.

        Billionaires are treasonous because they live outside the laws of their country, hold power over the government there and gain their money through exploitation